Son of Timatollah

The stick-figure PowerPoint presentation making its way around seems to explain very well the military situation in Iraq (well, al Anbar province, at least). It even seems to hint at a way out, but it also seems to lack a critical component. (The link is a .pdf version. It's very informative, and if you haven't already checked it out elsewhere, I encourage you to take a look at it.)

I guess I would summarize it as follows

• Our soldiers have to lug too much body armor and gear to be effective fighters;
  
• It's hard to tell the difference between ordinary Iraqis and insurgents;
  
• Iraqis are more likely to trust men wearing moustaches than men who don't ("The Iraqis are very wise that way," said the fifty-year-old man who has had a moustache since he was eighteen);
  
• Local Iraqi police are more effective than the Iraqi army, who suffer the same weight/bulk/effectiveness issues as the US military, at identifying and terminating insurgents (Islamacist or Baathist);
  
• The Sheiks who hold local and regional power are cool with the men in their militias becoming local and regional policemen, but not cool with their joining the Iraqi army and getting shipped to distant provinces; so
  
• We need to work more with the Sheiks to convert their militiamen into policemen, who can more effectively fight the insurgents (Islamacist or Baathist), leading to increased security, etc.
  

What the slides don't state is who will then join the Iraqi army, which it seems to me is necessary to have to deter Iranian aggression. Maybe I missed it. Maybe it's implicit that as local and regional security increases, there will be more men available to join the Iraqi national army. Maybe that's just not sufficiently critical compared to the troubles with the insurgents.

It goes without saying that building local partnerships is among the things that the Bush (43) administration should've done in the first place. That would've been after securing Baghdad, preventing the looting of Iraqi treasures and pre-war information, and securing the oil production facilities. I can almost hear him, Cheney, and Rumsfled saying, "But that's exactly what they expect us to do! We'll show them!"